Featured student: Clancy Anderson

Location: Bristol, Tenn.

Education: Training as a submarine nuclear reactor operator in the Navy, and an undergraduate degree in history from Eastern Connecticut State University

When Will Biggs left the United States Marine Corps after 10 years of service, he started a job hunt that proved to be a bit rougher than he had anticipated.

“I was looking at county jobs and had probably applied to at least 15 positions, and nobody gave me a chance until the public libraries did,” he said. “I started working at the library and I realized I liked it.”

When MSIS student Dylan Miller heard local LGBTQ+ nonprofit organization OUTMemphis speak at her library about LGBTQ+ inclusivity, it planted the seed of an idea: why not host a Pride event at the library? She wasn’t the only one who understood the importance of the organization’s message and had the same response – two other Benjamin L. Hook Central Library employees met up with Miller and an OUTMemphis representative, and together they decided that such an event should happen.

MSIS student Rachael Murphy started an assistantship at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Hodges Library in fall 2019, conducting a “kindness audit.” The audit takes an inventory of all the signage throughout the library to assess what kind of messages or ideas are being communicated to those who walk into the building.

“We’re looking at, do they feel comfortable, do we create spaces that make them want to come back? We’re taking into consideration people who have disabilities or marginalized identities, things that people may not consider when they think of a library,” Murphy said.

It was by chance that Aisha Johnson-Jones found information about the historic Julius Rosenwald Fund Library Program while she was doing research on increasing African-American diversity in archives. As she started learning more about the program, she started asking around to see what research had been done on the topic. When it became clear that it was an untouched subject, she knew it was her calling to bring the story to life – how one philanthropist funded libraries and schools for African-Americans and made a lasting impact.

Director of Voices Out Loud and Research Librarian Donna Braquet 

Voices Out Loud is an archives and oral history project started by UT Research Librarian Donna Braquet, who felt like there needed to be a resource chronicling the history of LGBTQ+ people in East Tennessee. Various pieces make up the collection, including three projects SIS students have worked on over the past year.